Thursday, July 9, 2015

Rich Nathan's "Who is My Enemy?" and set theory

Read this section of Rich Nathan's "Who is My Enemy?" It has to do with set theory, which we have already introduced. Post a paragraph response in the comments below. Mention one or two specific things that were interesting to you, or dovetailed with other class learnings,

The church needs to bring people in, not leave people out. The church is supposed to be civil, persuasive, realistic, and speak the gospel. The fact that Nathan refers to the church as something we are not supposed to be apart of is something that. The world makes up the church, let's not leave the rest of the world to be abandoned. Set theory creates boundaries so that they can be crossed.

"Today am I moving toward Christ or away from Christ?" I like his explanation of centered sets because in the text, he states that centered sets help us to better understand a person's place, not whether they are in or out. He used the example of "Are you healthy today?" This questions makes it seem as if health is unchanging, while rather it's a matter of whether the person is moving toward being healthy or moving away from being healthy. Rather than having people in or out, it's their place in that situation or area and their movement toward or away from it.

I would much rather be a part of a centered set, with Jesus in the middle and me heading towards the center than in a bound set. Bound sets are so cut and dry; you're in or you're out. No room for error or u-turns in a bound set. I think fuzzy sets are prevalent in today's society. The lines are blurred and many of us try and make up our own interpretations of what Jesus wants us to do. I really liked the part of this article about persuasion versus force. So many of my friends who don't attend church at all or don't have any sort of walk won't listen to anything they think is forced upon them. When the author said "real change must come from the bottom up, or better yet, the inside out"....I had an "aha" moment. That statement is so on point.

I would much rather be a part of a centered set, with Jesus in the middle and me heading towards the center than in a bound set. Bound sets are so cut and dry; you're in or you're out. No room for error or u-turns in a bound set. I think fuzzy sets are prevalent in today's society. The lines are blurred and many of us try and make up our own interpretations of what Jesus wants us to do. I really liked the part of this article about persuasion versus force. So many of my friends who don't attend church at all or don't have any sort of walk won't listen to anything they think is forced upon them. When the author said "real change must come from the bottom up, or better yet, the inside out"....I had an "aha" moment. That statement is so on point.

This was a great revisit to our conversations about Set Theory. Using the examples of the apple for a bounded set, health for a centered set and church for the fuzzy set helps to define these terms. I think the fuzzy set idea of church and the world really sticks with me. We all go to church to praise God, but we should also be taking church to the streets and spreading his teachings in our daily lives. In this case the church has become a fuzzy set, it is in church as well as in the world.

The reality of a centered set is that it leaves room for change. Sometimes change can be a good thing like moving towards faith or the lord. It can also be a negative moving away from the lord centered set are better it shows movement. I kind of like the fuzzy set a little of A and a little of B

The part I found most intriguing was where he defined the church and the world as a fuzzy set. The idea of "in the world, not of it" is talked about so much it was kind of shocking to see that it's more of a fuzzy set. Since the church is made up of imperfect people still trying to overcome their carnal nature it makes sense that some of the world seeps into the church.

Centered sets were one of the theories that I found the most confusing. I love how it is described here in the sense of health. When we smoke or eat unhealthy food we are moving away from good health but we acknowledge that at any time we can turn around and change our direction. This helps me understand exactly what they mean by a center set. We can ask ourselves if we are facing Christ or is our back turned to him. We seem to be at a time where a lot of vocal Christians are close to God but seem to be going in the wrong direction. They judge and condemn those they know nothing about. I think being in a bounded set with God and continuing to be in a centered set by moving towards him would be a good mix of set theories.

I really liked Nathas' message of "ministry welcome" and how he describes the center set and the fuzzy set. I understand the bounded set, the concept of being in or out and crossing that line. I can relate to centered set (this is my favorite) because you are not constrained, you can move and change your arrow towards God at any time. The fuzzy set was introduced to me in a different way here. Nathan says, "that fuzzy sets help us understand that the church and the world often blend together" and that makes a lot of sense. We keep making the same mistakes of the past giving more importance to the worldly things than actually doing what Jesus came to show us which is, as the book points out, love, faith, mercy and compassion to all!

I like how he explained centered sets and fuzzy sets. He says centered sets are you either move away or towards Christ. This can be related to life situations where a person doesn't get their way, blame God and move away from the church. Or something tragic happens and these people feel they need to move towards him. Fuzzy sets were explained as being both with the church and the world. Many churches need to accept this concept especially when we bring up the topic of homosexuality. Many people want to be happy in their personal life but cannot step inside their church and be accepted.

I liked the examples given for each set. The bounded set said, "an apple is always an apple, it is never a potato." Although that seems like a silly statement it makes the definition quite clear. You either are or you aren't. The centered set used an example about health being in the center, I like this example since I am a nurse. You are either making progress towards better health or you are getting more unhealthy based on the choices you make. The fuzzy set said something about when is Hispanic Hispanic? This made me think of my 5 year old son who is half white and half Mexican. When you ask him he will say he is white because he has light skin but I try to explain to him that he is actually both even though he looks white.